Translated…
As I traveled to the deserts of Jordan, I was striking up a conversation with an Arab nomad, I asked him, “What are you most worried about in life right now?”, he’d told me, nothing’s troubling him.
I’d continued, isn’t he worried, that his animals would go astray? He’d recalled, “We’d kept our camels tied up, the rest, leaving it up to the Gods.”
“What about diseases, or natural disasters?”, “It’s all the wills of God.”
“But, what if there’s the plague, then, how will you resolve that?” “Even if we are, hit by the plague, then, I’m sure we’ll come up with something to resolve it.”
“Even if you’d suffered great losses, it’s okay too?”
“How much we make in our lifetime, it’s all up to God too.”, he’d told me.
A series of answers showed how open-minded he was, it’d shocked me, because I was used to Taiwan’s “Complain on any and everything that displeases you”, and, even standing in a long line on a rainy day can become a cause to file for a complaint with customer services—that the stores shouldn’t have the specials on a rainy day, causing the public to stand in a long line. And still, the Arabs deeply believed, that it’s all, God’s will; not raining, it’s also, God’s will. Comparing, the mode of thinking we’re used to is: rainy days are troublesome, the best case scenario is the sunny days; but, we’d heard complaints on the sunny days too: carried out my umbrella for nothing!
We’d been taught, to introspect since we were growing up, for instance, why did we lose the points we’d lost in those exams, and believed, that everyday, everybody should make the perfect score of a hundred. But, as I grew older, I’d found, that the scoring systems of certain countries are addition based, how many points for this one you’d gotten right, how many points you’d earned for getting that question right, and in that system, it’d not treated the perfect score of a hundred as something that everybody SHOULD achieve.
And this sort of value system of losing the points, compared every single instance to the perfect conditions, with the slightest points off, we’d felt regretful. And so, we are always, dissatisfied, when it rained, we’d longed for the sunny days, and, when it is sunny, we’d wondered why we can’t make the time to head outside, and, when we have the time and the opportunity to head out, we’d pondered on, if only, we could have the money, for better cars.
And, why is it, that when we bought those stocks, the prices are always at the highest, and when we’d sold, the prices had dropped? If we’d made $500,000N.T. from it, we’d think, “Had I known, I would’ve kept the stock and sold it at $600,000N.T.s”, and, if we really actually, made $600,000N.T.s, we’d probably pondered on how we could’ve made seven hundred, or even, eight hundred thousand dollars, like life is supposed to be perfect, and everything else, is simply, unacceptable………how, can you not be troubled, if you kept this sort of mindset? If only’s are a waste of time, there’s no way that you can have sunny days your whole lives, and, the roads you traveled couldn’t always be flat and easy to walk through all the time.
And, comparing, this nomadic friend feels happy, so long as the heavens gave him a bigger-than-zero life. He’d accepted his conditions in the present, do what he ought to, and not get lost, in the comparisons.
Raining can be good too, because “After the rains, the sun will come out again.” Actually, when you changed your thoughts, you’d find that peace and calm, there’s no need to read life by the things you’d lost. That way, you’d gain more points more easily.
So, this, is the philosophies of life that someone gained from being with a person of another culture, and, comparing, our lives are, a HELL of a LOT more complicated than the man’s, and, because the man has a simpler view of happiness, it would naturally, be easier, for him, to reach his goals of being happy, and that just tells us, we should ALWAYS keep things easy, and not complicate things, that way, we can feel happy more easily like this man too!
Life, the Obstacle Course 